<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Thistle and Thorn by SnugglePuppyBoi</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29113167">Thistle and Thorn</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnugglePuppyBoi/pseuds/SnugglePuppyBoi'>SnugglePuppyBoi</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fairy Tales &amp; Related Fandoms, Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bargains, Bittersweet Ending, Crying, Crying During Sex, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Drooling, Fae &amp; Fairies, Forced Orgasm, Human Sacrifice, M/M, Magical Transition, Manipulation, Mild Blood and Injury, Non-Consensual Bondage, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Offerings, Other, Penetrative Sex, Sex Magic, Tentacle Rape, Tentacle Sex, mentions of past physical abuse, vine sex</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 04:13:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,186</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29113167</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnugglePuppyBoi/pseuds/SnugglePuppyBoi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In the final instance of suffering because of the actions of his bastard father, Mouse is punished in his father's place, forced into acting as the human sacrifice to a forest that's bloodlust must be regularly sated. </p><p>Whether it's to Mouse's fortune or misfortune that the forest is interested in accepting this new offering in a very different way than letting the monster of the forest rip him to pieces remains to be seen.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Original Male Character/Original Male Character</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>46</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Thistle and Thorn</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>As with all my stories, content warnings are in the tags. </p><p>The language used for the body of the trans character, Mouse, includes the words "cock", "labia", "chest", and "entrance". The story contains penetrative, non-consensual sex but does not specify which orifice. If any of that is triggering or uncomfortable for you, please use your best judgement on whether or not to read this.</p><p>End note will contain an additional warning/explanation on the Dead Dove tag if you're at all concerned about that. </p><p>Please enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The forest demands blood. If it is not given, it will be taken.</p><p>Death and injury are an inevitable part of the forest. A woodsman spills the blood of trees and has his own blood spilled in return when a tree falls wrong and crushes his bones to slivers. A huntress spends her days killing hare and hart and narrowly escapes the tusks of a wild boar with her life and a leg that will forever bear the scars. This is not what the forest demands. This is what all forests require, what all wild places require in order to exist.</p><p>The blood the forest demands is darker, deep and murky and malicious, full of the promise of magic. At the heart of all magic, the spark from which it all is kindled, is sacrifice. The forest does not want the inevitability of the woodsman's death or huntress's injury but the sweetness that can only be found in grief and misery, submission and resignation, sacrifice and futility.</p><p>The forest demands this and the monster of the forest exists to collect it. By force, if necessary.</p><p>Struggling against the ropes tied around his wrists and ankles, Mouse thrashes against the uneven surface of an ancient and massive tree stump. Metal rings driven deep into the wood at four points are looped with the rope binding him. Having held countless sacrifices before him, many that were doubtlessly far stronger than Mouse could ever hope to be, Mouse's increasingly weak thrashing does nothing to budge the rings at all.</p><p>Tears of rage, pain, and fear gather at the corner of his eyes, threatening to spill over. When he'd first been tied, someone had wrapped a thin layer of fur around Mouse's wrists to protect them from chafing but that's long since fallen away and now they're red and raw and bloody, already forming bruises. Mouse doesn't care. Bruises are the least of his concern right now.</p><p>It's getting dark. Black branches obscure the sky, allowing only the occasional glimpse of darkening blue from Mouse's position, but sunlight has stopped streaming through the gaps in the leaves. Mouse's chest heaves. Swallowing hard, he closes his eyes, feeling a hot tear slide down the side of his face, and grits his teeth as he yanks his left wrist with as much force as he can muster.</p><p>The noise he makes isn't quite a scream, but it's close.</p><p>The entire time he struggles himself to the point of exhaustion, he's cursing his father to every miserable death he can think of.</p><p>Mouse has been a lot of people in his life. Any role his father needed filled, always ready to play the required part. Of all the people Mouse has been, it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth that the one that he's played the most often is the one he's never really been and the one he really is he's never gotten a chance to be. To the world at large, Mouse doesn't exist. He's just the nameless daughter of a second-rate charlatan.</p><p>His father has taken more things from him than he'll ever get back. Taken any chance for Mouse to ever know his birth mother, taken the lives of the mother who'd raised Mouse and his two half-siblings, taken Mouse's dignity more times and in more ways than Mouse can ever count, and, now, taken Mouse's life along with the rest of it.</p><p>Mouse had tried to convince him he'd picked a bad town to ply his trade in. It was too tied up with ancient magic, things untameable and wild. The forest was frightening, the traditions chilling, the stories a clear warning. But Mouse's father never listened, least of all to Mouse, and there was only so much Mouse could say before his father got violent.</p><p>Nothing had happened to his father, of course. Nothing ever did. Years ago, Mouse had watched him drunkenly stumble completely unscathed out of the burning building that had killed his step-mother and little siblings. It was the same fire that had scarred Mouse for life and the same one that had been set to kill his father but had destroyed everything good in Mouse's life instead.</p><p>And Mouse's father had dragged a sobbing Mouse away behind him, laughing all the while. Mouse had been twelve years old. It was the year he realized he hated him.</p><p>On the tree stump, Mouse has finally exhausted himself. Unable to do anything else, he finally begins crying in earnest.</p><p>The people of the town had apologized to him and he thinks some of them actually meant it. He'd woken up to knocking on the door and an empty house and, without being told, knew his father had cut his losses and abandoned him.</p><p>
  <em>Crimes need to be repaid.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The blood of the father flows in the child.</em>
</p><p>The only comfort Mouse feels is that at least he was wrong about one thing. His father will be the death of him, but not because he got a little too drunk and finally beat Mouse to death. There's almost something gratifying in that, in that even if his father is killing him at least he won't be able to see Mouse's final miserable moments.</p><p>He closes hot eyes swollen from crying and tries to find some measure of inner steadiness. Gasping in shaking breaths through his mouth, his breathing smooths out. Inside he feels like a little child clinging to a piece of driftwood amidst a raging storm, but he's a good enough liar to deceive himself into something approaching calm.</p><p>The forest darkens into shadow and whisper. Mouse waits for the monster. He isn't waiting long.</p><p>Animals stay away from this part of the forest. Mouse has heard the town's people talk about it, about how the space is so soaked in blood and misery that it's been made sacrosanct. Other than the monster and the yearly sacrifice, the only creatures that linger there are ones seeking their own deaths. When something touches Mouse, he knows the only thing it can be.</p><p>Cool and smooth, that anticipated something traces along the dried path of a tear track, gentle as a caress. Mouse stiffens, the breath catching in his throat, but the phantom fangs he can feel pricking against his exposed throat never come. The thing traces the same line again, then again and again. Each touch has Mouse's heart leaping into his throat. He's not sure if he should read it as some sort of comfort or being tasted.</p><p>Another object like the first, long and slender, boneless but sturdy, slithers beneath the rope around Mouse's right wrist and mimics the movements of the first. Pain flares and, though gentle, the touch is persistent and agitates the healing wound. Before long each touch is wet with the slick slide of blood and something more than that too.</p><p>Mouse shifts. A third object joins the other two, this time licking at one of Mouse's calves, slipping under the hem of his skirt. It's less gentle than the others, rubbing slightly roughly.</p><p>More and more join. Some hardly move, barely kneading at his flesh, while others wrap around his arms or legs or waist, squeezing him like he's at risk of escape.</p><p>The areas they're targeting with their touching are also increasingly sensitive. The pain in Mouse's bloody wrists and ankles has faded into an afterthought—though Mouse isn't sure why, the things touching him continue to agitate his wounds—and the sensation has been replaced by a tingling numbness. What's more, several have slipped inside Mouse's clothing, rubbing at his inner thighs or tracing his ribs.</p><p>The situation being what it is, Mouse is terrified, but the repeated touches are soothing and exciting in a way that Mouse doesn't want them to be. It's a bad combination for poor Mouse's brain, the fear and the almost affectionate touches both leaving his underclothes unpleasantly wet. Biting his bottom lip and doing his best to close his thighs against one of the unknown objects pushing into his underclothes, Mouse shifts in his bindings again.</p><p>One of his hands touches one of the things and he hesitantly closes his fingers around it. Turning his head, he tries to make out what it is in the dark but fails. Instead, he explores it as best he can with his hand and, to his surprise, it feels familiar.</p><p>He can't be sure what type it is, but he's spent enough time around plants in his life to recognize a vine in the dark, even if that vine is currently coiling around his fingers more like a snake than a plant.</p><p>A vine strokes over his lips once before pushing forcefully past them, hooking behind Mouse's teeth and pulling his head back to its earlier position. Without meaning to, Mouse bites down. A green, astringent flavor leaks onto his tongue and everywhere it touches buzzes like an angry hive of bees. The vine spasms for a moment, choking Mouse and spreading the strange flavor further, before stilling and pressing heavily against his tongue.</p><p>Taking advantage of Mouse's momentary distraction and lack of resistance, several more vines have joined the first in his underclothes. The feel of them squirming against one another, slipping around in the slickness coating Mouse's thighs like they're frolicking together, makes Mouse feel slightly repulsed even while his roughened breathing begins to sound lewd to his own ears. He tries to squeeze his thighs together again but there's not much movement his bindings allow and the vines are high enough that all his efforts do is push them even higher.</p><p>Quickly, he stops trying to press his legs together, not wanting to encourage them, but a bold vine pushes between his labia. It's thicker than most of the others, about twice the width of Mouse's forefinger, and when it finds his cock, his ragged gasp is loud enough in the silent night air to cause him to flinch.</p><p>Another vine curls across his chest, tapered end encircling a nipple. Despite still being fully dressed, the vulnerability of Mouse's position leaves him feeling naked. Vines around his waist lift his midsection slightly off of the stump, little uneven points of wood that had been digging into his back retreating, and Mouse is grateful that the vine in his mouth helps to muffle the noises he makes.</p><p>That same vine stretches itself out, probing the back of Mouse's throat. Drool leaks from his mouth while he gags and sputters around the intrusion, distracting him from the slicked vine that prods at his entrance before abruptly penetrating him.</p><p>Once again, tears leak from Mouse's eyes. He moans, the noise utterly pathetic, and he feels shame burn fire bright in his chest. More vines enter alongside the first, thrusting without rhythm or coordination in a way that's so different from Mouse's imaginings of human sexual activity to be entirely unnerving. There are too many, too quickly, but Mouse doesn't feel any pain, only discomfort and the same buzzing from his mouth spreading across the rest of his body. The vine focused on Mouse's cock becomes more vigorous, mimicking the motion of an eager human tongue.</p><p>The sensations are too much, especially combined with the emotional intensity of the situation, and Mouse comes with a strangled cry. Fighting through the resulting shudders, Mouse feels the vine in his mouth slip away, quickly followed by vine after vine until, only moments later, all of them have disappeared.</p><p>If it weren't for the clear signs they'd been there—the sudden emptiness after having been stretched full, the slick and come soaking into his lower clothes, the numbness spread throughout his entire body—Mouse could believe the vines had never been there at all. Swallowing excess saliva and licking his lips, Mouse tries to gather his thoughts on what just happened but finds his body isn't the only thing undergoing some strange intoxication.</p><p>Warmth spreads across his forearm. It isn't until a voice says, "You must be cold," that Mouse realizes it's a hand touching him.</p><p>Mouse rolls his head towards the soft voice, expecting to, at best, see the vague outline of a figure in the darkness. The forest is darker than it has any right to be, black as malice, and even with time for his eyes to adjust Mouse could see more clearly in a windowless room than the environment he's currently in. But, surprisingly, Mouse doesn't see a shadow lurking amidst shadows but a tall man crouching over Mouse's body.</p><p>Staring at him, Mouse feels a frisson of fear despite the gentle expression on the man's face. It only takes a glance to tell what the man is. His features are well-illuminated by a soft silver glow, as if the overlapping branches above have been cut away to allow the light of a full and luminous moon to shine down on all parts of him. Those features are precise and delicate, sharp in a way that adds an air of restrained ferocity to his look of compassion.</p><p>The man hums, lightly touching the rope looped around Mouse's wrist. It's impossible to make out the color of his eyes but they look mostly colorless aside from a third of one iris being noticeably darker. Likewise, the long, braided hair that spills over his shoulders is light in color, looking like strands of moonbeam.</p><p>Mouse doesn't miss the vines threaded through that hair like ribbon or the little flowers adorning it.</p><p><em>Fairy</em>, Mouse's mind whispers.</p><p>The fairy glances up as if Mouse's thought was audible, asymmetrical eyes taking a moment to take in Mouse's wrecked appearance—and Mouse is thankful, at the very least, he still has his clothes covering him—before he smiles at him.</p><p>"You did a wonderful job opening the way, young man," the fairy tells him. "I'll have you unbound in a moment."</p><p>No one who's ever seen Mouse in a skirt and blouse has ever called him "young man" before. Being seen by others as a man is one of Mouse's greatest goals in life, but when that seeing is done like this, with no indication on Mouse's part of his manhood? It's just as unnerving as it is craved.</p><p>The fairy sets to work untying his binds one after the other. Mouse doesn't move, even after the lost knot has been untied, until the fairy tales him by the hand and shoulder and urges him into a seated position. The world spins but the fairy moves slowly, supporting Mouse's weight with the tenderness of a nursemaid tending a sick child.</p><p>The change in position isn't quite comfortable. Sharp points of wood dig into Mouse's ass and thighs, though he still feels drugged, unable to feel true pain. There's a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that he fights down. The fairy gives him a moment to adjust before continuing to urge him, this time to stand up from the stump, and Mouse knows there's no point in resistance.</p><p>"Stay upright on your own for a moment," the fairy says, releasing his hold on him. Mouse sways in place but stays standing. Unpinning the cloak he's wearing, the fairy wastes no time wrapping it around Mouse's body before taking hold of Mouse once more. "You've done very well. Now it's time to try walking a bit. Not too far, I promise."</p><p>Walking is difficult. Mouse's legs feel boneless and, on his first step, he doesn't feel when his foot connects with the ground. Stumbling forward, he's caught by the fairy who steadies him and tells him to try again, then again, until finally Mouse is stumbling along awkwardly. It doesn't help that the fairy's cloak, thanks to the difference in their heights, hangs to the ground and tangles with Mouse's feet. Still, he manages somehow, guided along until...</p><p>It's only one step but suddenly the deep dark of the forest is replaced by streaming sunlight. They're not in the forest anymore, either. At least not entirely. Craning his head around to get a full view, Mouse takes in the surrounding garden, the large house beyond it, and the dark treeline encircling it all.</p><p>The fairy guides Mouse along until they reach an outdoor table with two wooden benches on either side. It's a relief when Mouse settles down to sit onto the cushioned surface of one of the benches, leaning forward heavily on the table. The fairy rubs soothing circles into his back and Mouse remembers the vines and shudders.</p><p>Opening his mouth, the words "thank you" are on the tip of Mouse's tongue before he freezes, biting down on the breach in etiquette before the mistake is made.</p><p>Mouse didn't grow up in a place with a living relationship with fairies, but that doesn't mean he's clueless on what to do and what not to. Never say thank you to a fairy. He clutches at the fairy's cloak, the fabric thin but incredibly warm, feeling like nothing else Mouse has ever touched.</p><p>Did wearing the cloak count as accepting a fairy's gift? It was never offered to him and he never made the choice to wear it. Like everything else, it was something forced on him.</p><p>"My name is Thistle," the fairy tells him. "What shall I call you?"</p><p>Mouse lifts his head, glancing at him. His vision is the slightest bit fuzzy, but in the daylight he can see the silver of his hair, the mixture of lavender and hazel that colors his irises, the dark fawn of his skin, just a few shades darker than Mouse's own. For some reason, he's surprised. He's always seen fairies depicted in art with skin pale as virgin snow. He'd never thought of a fairy that resembled him, a person of mixed ancestry in a country where his color made him conspicuous.</p><p>Thistle continues to smile at him, chin propped on one hand, entirely willing to wait long enough for Mouse to puzzle out the correct answer, like his namesake navigating a maze in search of an exit. There's an indulgence and good humor to the expression that leaves Mouse ill at ease.</p><p>The silence stretches on, seconds too hard to count in Mouse's current state, and he finally decides that saying the name he'd given himself, the one only he knows, rather than the birth name the world viewed him under was the safer bet.</p><p>His voice is hoarse and feels like it comes from someone other than himself. "My name is Mouse."</p><p>"Mouse," Thistle repeats. He seems pleased. "I welcome you as my guest. I'm the guardian of this forest, among other things." His eyes narrow slightly, then close. "But we have time to discuss that. You must be so hungry after your ordeal. Please, eat to your heart's content."</p><p>Thistle waves one long-fingered hand lazily through the air while he speaks and the table is suddenly crowded with dish after dish of fragrant, beautifully appetizing food. One of Thistle's eyes, the one with the hazel portion, cracks open and Mouse feels a sudden wave of hunger cramp his stomach, cutting through the tingling numbness.</p><p>One of Mouse's hands jerks towards the closest dish, a bowl of bright red soup with chunks of fish and vegetables floating in it and a ghostly wisp of steam rising from its surface. It's not until his fingers are brushing the polished wooden exterior of the bowl that he regains control over himself. Jerking his hand back, he shoves both of his hands between his thighs to keep them still.</p><p>"Not hungry after all?" Thistle asks. He plucks a yellow-green grape from a bunch of them, extending it across the table to wave in front of Mouse's mouth. Saliva pools and Mouse swallows it down hard. "Not even a bite? I'd feel so much more assured if you ate something."</p><p>Mouse shakes his head, not foolish enough to risk opening his mouth, and Thistle chuckles, popping the grape into his own mouth with an amused expression. Relief floods Mouse, though it's short-lived. Regardless of if Mouse intends to eat or not, Thistle spends time sampling the dishes at the table, offering a taste to Mouse, and only stops once they've run through every last dish there. Drool leaks from the corners of Mouse's lips faster than he can wipe it away and Mouse is too frightened to accept the handkerchief Thistle produces and holds out for him.</p><p>Having tortured Mouse enough, or, at least, Mouse hopes so, Thistle waves his hand and the food disappears in the same manner it had appeared. The hunger Mouse feels vanishes along with it.</p><p>"Is there anything you need of me? I'll do my best to see to whatever needs you have," Thistle tells him.</p><p>Mouse shakes his head, trying to ignore the way it makes the world turn on an angle. He catches himself before he can say anything he shouldn't, instead saying, "I'm fine at the moment. I appreciate the offer."</p><p>His voice sounds steadier than earlier, too, which he takes comfort in. It's a flimsy armor to wear but the only one he has available to him.</p><p>"Then I suppose I should explain to you this forest and your place in it," Thistle says. Seeing Mouse's unease, he adds, "You're really quite fortunate. Today could have gone very differently for you."</p><p>Fortunate? Mouse had been abandoned by his father, held prisoner by angry townspeople, offered as a human sacrifice, raped, and taken into the fairy world. He couldn't see a way in which that series of events or even the events that had led to them could be described as fortunate.</p><p>But Thistle continues on, languid and tranquil. "If you had run into the monster instead of the guardian, you'd be dead now."</p><p>That's not a surprise, though it takes Mouse's mind a moment to process. "Dead?"</p><p>Thistle rests his elbow on the table once again, chin on the palm of his hand. Eyes half-lidded, he nods slightly. "The monster would have torn you apart, eaten every bit of flesh and organ, rearranged your pretty little bones for the humans to find next year." He trails off, a half-smile on his lips. Silence stretches uncomfortably long. Mouse squirms. "But I found you instead and brought you here."</p><p>"Why?"</p><p>"Because the forest willed it, most of all. But the will of the forest only goes so far. If you'd rather meet with the monster than continue as my guest, it's simple enough for you to do so." Thistle drops his hand, straightening his posture and sitting upright. "I am the guardian of the forest. I am also the monster of the forest, though you wouldn't recognize me between roles. Imagine me as one role and, even against what the forest wills, that role is the one you'll receive."</p><p>The words are spoken with the same friendly air of restraint that everything else Thistle has spoken thus far has been, but Mouse doesn’t miss that they function as both threat and warning. He’s not sure which outcome is the one Thistle wants. He’s not sure which outcome would ultimately be the better one for himself.</p><p>Resisting the urge to hunch his shoulders and make himself smaller, Mouse clings to the little bit of steadiness he feels within himself. “The other you will kill me. What will the current you do?”</p><p>“Treat you just the way I have so far. I owe you a certain consideration as my guest here, especially as an unwilling one.” Some of the vines that have until now laid docile in Thistle’s hair or decorating his clothing stir to life, causing the breath to catch in Mouse’s throat and his heart to seize in his chest.</p><p>The vines don’t make a move towards him, going back to laying still a few moments later. It’s an uncomfortable and unwanted reminder, though.</p><p>Thistle continues, making no note of Mouse’s discomfort. “Actually, you’ve lightened my mood considerably. I’ve been troubled these last few days. I was thinking of offering you a gift, one you shouldn’t refuse out of hand.”</p><p>Despite those last words, or because of them, Mouse wants nothing more than to refuse outright. Stopping himself from doing just that is difficult. Flexing his tingling fingers, he thinks, watching Thistle’s face as he does.</p><p>The amusement glimmering in Thistle’s mismatched eyes seems darker now, more predatory.</p><p>Refusing without hearing Thistle out would be foolish, Mouse decides. He just hopes that listening is the less foolish option.</p><p>Mouse licks his lips, doesn’t feel the pressure of his tongue against them. “A gift?”</p><p>The look on Thistle’s face, a slow, feline smile of pure pleasure, is less than assuring. “I’m offering a boon, freely given. If it’s something beyond my power to give, it’s beyond my power to give, but anything else, I’ll allow of you. Would you like some time to think it over?”</p><p>Mouse doesn’t need time to think it over. The offer on the table, he feels as if he’s jolting out of the strange intoxication he’s under, a little more awake, a little more aware. He doesn’t rush into it, though.</p><p>Cautiously, he clarifies, “Freely given?”</p><p>Thistle hums in agreement. “I expect nothing from you in return.”</p><p>It’s too good of an offer to be true and Mouse knows he’s being tricked somehow. But he can’t see how, can’t see how to avoid it, and can’t see a better opportunity coming along.</p><p>“Would you take me back to the town I was living in?” he asks. He’s not sure if going back is the best idea but he’s holding out hope that his reappearance will be taken as a sign that the forest didn’t want him, that he was rejected as a sacrifice, and he’ll be left alone. It’s his best option in terms of location to return to, regardless.</p><p>“Of course. It’s a shame we’ll be parting so soon. I’d hoped to get to know you better.” Thistle doesn’t seem offended or angered by Mouse’s request. “If we leave now it should just be turning daylight by the time you return,” Thistle tells him.</p><p>Mouse considers and then discards the idea of asking about the difference in time of day between the place they are now and the part of the forest Mouse had been left earlier. It’s not important and the less Mouse knows about these things the safer he’ll likely be afterwards.</p><p>The sooner Mouse is back in his bed, the better. Agreeing, he allows Thistle to help him to his feet, leaning heavily against the fairy when another wave of dizziness washes over him.</p><p>“Muzzy headed still?” Thistle asks. Mouse nods, then regrets it when that just makes the dizziness worse. “It might last a day or so longer, though it’ll lessen in effect.”</p><p>They wait until it passes before starting to walk, Thistle leading and Mouse relying on him to keep from stumbling over his own feet and collapsing to the ground. Progress is slow but steady and Thistle is patient, pausing every so often to ensure Mouse can continue.</p><p>It isn’t until they’re almost to the treeline, the sky above them darkening the closer they get, that Thistle says, with the tone of an afterthought, “I’m a bit surprised, you know.”</p><p>Mouse knows a trap when he sees one, but that doesn’t stop him from sticking his head in and letting it snap around his neck.</p><p>“Surprised?”</p><p>“That you asked to go back to the people that left you to me. I was expecting you to ask for me to change your body.”</p><p>Mouse stops. The treeline is only a few yards away. Thistle stops along with him, hands moving to stabilize Mouse’s shaky body.</p><p>“You could change it?” Mouse demands. His voice comes out harsher than he intends, tinged with a lifetime’s worth of desperation. He turns sharply, one of his hands fisting around the fabric of Thistle’s shirt, feet tangling on the hem of Thistle’s cloak still wrapped around his shoulders. “Into…” he remembers Thistle calling him a young man immediately. “...how it should be?”</p><p>Thistle smiles like a knife cutting into Mouse’s chest, scraping along his ribcage. “Would you like to change what we agreed to, Mouse?”</p><p>It doesn’t matter that it’s a trap or that this was set up by Thistle as a trick. Mouse can’t think of anything he wouldn’t agree to so he can feel comfortable in his body.</p><p>“I want to change it.”</p><p>“I’m afraid the terms have changed, just a bit. If you want to return, I’ll still take you back with nothing expected of you, but to change our agreement, I’ll need something in return.”</p><p>Mouse isn’t unwise enough to tell Thistle he’ll agree to whatever he wants even if that’s the truth, so instead he asks, “What do you want?”</p><p>The smile on Thistle's face fades, expression becoming intensely serious. The vines adorning him, some bunched with Thistle’s shirt in Mouse’s fist, writhe with excitement. “Never leave this forest ever again and become my companion, in both my roles, for eternity.”</p><p>For a trick, it's one of the easiest choices Mouse has ever made. What alternative does he have? Live a miserable life on his own until he finds his death or seek out his father and continue the life he’s used to? Both are their own sorts of imprisonment and both deny him the thing he truly wants.</p><p>“I agree,” Mouse says. A vine wraps around his rubbed raw wrist, encircling the unfeeling wound before slipping away again. “I’ll stay with you.”</p><p>Thistle smiles. “I’m happy to hear it.”</p><p>The forest demands blood but blood is obtained in many ways and blood spilled by fang and claw is not always the sweetest. With this new blood, the forest is sated for a time.</p><p>Time passes in realms both human and fairy. The forest begins to hunger again and another sacrifice is chosen. Taken into the deepest part of the forest, its beating heart and bloody jaws, skittish townsfolk hurry to leave the offering behind as quickly as possible.</p><p>They whisper prayers and give terrified looks to the stump of an ancient tree that bears the signs of the last year’s sacrifice.</p><p>Vines entangle and embrace the skeleton stretched out across the stump, encircling ribs and filling the skeleton’s empty cavities. The ropes that once held ankles and wrists in place, tethered to metal rings, are long gone, along with the skeleton’s clothing. Despite the passage of time and the elements, the vines have held the skeleton together so that not a single bone is missing.</p><p>The current year’s sacrifice struggles, but is held in place while people remove the former sacrifice’s bones from the stump and tie the new one in place. Then they leave, praying for protection all the while, and no one dares leave their home that night.</p><p>The sacrifice curses and struggles, only stopping when a long, wavering howl pierces the air, followed by the distant, barely audible voice of a man. They wait, body tensed.</p><p>They aren’t waiting long.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The Dead Dove tag was included largely because, while Mouse doesn't put much thought into it at the time of making his agreement with Thistle, Mouse is agreeing to spend the rest of eternity with his rapist. (Mostly because Mouse hasn't realized that the vines are Thistle and not just something separate/part of the forest and most likely under his command.) Additionally, Thistle receives no negative repercussions for raping Mouse.</p><p>If you read the story, thank you very much! Feel free to leave a comment or kudos if you enjoyed it or have anything you want to say.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>